By mergemassagefla
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October 23, 2020
Meditation is the practice where an individual uses a technique such as mindfulness, focusing the mind on a particular object, thought, or activity- to train attention and awareness, and achieve a mentally clear and emotionally calm and stable state. Mental health issues such as depression, anxiety, and chronic stress are prevalent in United States, and are considered serious health condition along side heart disease, cancer and asthma. Integrative and holistic mind body practices such as yoga and mindfulness meditation have become increasingly popular and beneficial as well when it comes to psychological and physical health issues. In fact, yoga and meditation are considered stress reduction techniques that can influence how we relate to mental and physical issues, ultimately leading to less suffering and attachment to life outcomes. Types of Meditation 1. Mindfulness meditation: this kind of meditation trains you to focus on what you are thinking or feeling at the moment. You can concentrate on your thoughts, feelings, or sensations. *This type of meditation helps with getting better sleep, making progress towards goals, lowers stress levels, gets rid of temporary negative feelings, improve attention span, and helps to prevent depression relapse. 2. Loving kindness meditation: one of the most prominent meditation styles, this type allows you to focus on your energy to feel the warmth of love, kindness, and other positive feelings *During this type of meditation, you focus benevolent and loving energy towards yourself and others. It can take a lot of practice , and sometimes it leads to resistance since the average person is not used to this level of giving and receiving love. 3. Transcendental Meditation: This meditation technique promotes a state of relaxation by helping you avoid distracting thoughts and feelings. *This type of meditation reduces stress and anxiety, greatly improves sleep, gives you a greater sense of clarity and productivity, can help lower blood pressure, gives you a greater sense of calmness throughout the day, reduces cortisol, lower risk of heart attack and stroke, and helps improve brain function and memory 4. Zen Meditation: this is the practice of preparing your body and mind to be calm in order to open yourself up to exploring the nature of your being. *The benefits of this meditation is it helps calm your nervous system, meditation is a very effective way to bring our brain waves into a deeply calming and relaxing alpha wave state. It also helps you focus your energy, optimizes you circulatory system, and helps boost your immune system! Meditation is linked with feeling less stressed as well as actually lowering the stress hormone cortisol. It can result in brain changes that protect against mental health conditions, and help us process emotions even when we're not actively meditating. Meditation can also help the elderly feel less lonely and reduce genes linked to inflammation, while also having a link with decrease cigarette, alcohol, and drug abuse. We experience less anxiety as meditation loosens connections to particular neural pathways, with rapid memory recall improvements.